Jets Fire DC Gregg Williams
The Jets have fired defensive coordinator Gregg Williams, according to NFL.com’s Tom Pelissero (on Twitter). The move comes after the Jets latest loss to the Raiders, dropping them to 0-12. 
[RELATED: Jets Eyeing Eagles HC Doug Pederson?]
Fans have mostly directed their ire towards head coach Adam Gase this year, but, so far, the Jets have resisted calls for his firing. For now, Williams is the lone coach to get the heave-ho, but no one would be surprised to see additional house cleaning between now and the end of the year. It’s worth noting that the Jets also employ Williams’ son — Blake Williams — as a defensive assistant.
Williams has built a career as a defensive guru, but his Jets unit ranked 29th in the NFL this year. The last straw might have come on Sunday when he called an all-out blitz on the final play, leaving one outmatched cornerback to guard Henry Ruggs III. Ruggs burned him and scored a 46-yard touchdown, costing the Jets their first W of the season.
In Williams’ defense, this Jets team was clearly not built to win. That was clear when the Jets shipped safety Jamal Adams to the Seahawks and later sent linebacker Avery Williamson to the Steelers. They’ve also been sans C.J. Mosley, though it’s fair to wonder how much the high-priced linebacker would have helped.
Eagles Bench Carson Wentz
Many Eagles fans have been clamoring for this for a while now, and they finally got their wish. Doug Pederson benched quarterback Carson Wentz during the team’s game against the Packers Sunday.
Jalen Hurts took over under center. At first it looked like Hurts might just be coming out as part of his usual gadget package, but Pederson let him play an entire drive. Then Hurts was back out there to start the next series, confirming that Wentz had been benched. While it’s a move that arguably had to be made, it also raises more questions than it answers moving forward. Wentz has well over $50MM in guaranteed money still coming his way between 2021 and 2022, and there’s no good way out of his contract for a while.
If Hurts is made the full-time starter, Wentz will obviously be an extraordinarily expensive backup. The former second overall pick regressed mightily this season, and currently leads the NFL with a whopping 15 interceptions. Nobody else in the league had more than 11 entering this week. Wentz was once again disastrous against Green Bay before getting pulled, completing only six of 15 passes.
Pederson has clearly been mulling this decision for a while, as we heard before their Week 12 game that Hurts was getting more reps in practice and would see his heaviest usage yet last week on Monday Night Football. That didn’t materialize as Hurts played sparingly in the loss to the Seahawks, but the next week he finally pulled the trigger.
The Eagles are still alive in the race for the pitiful NFC East, but things are slipping away fast. The team is at a crossroads, and it’ll be very interesting to see how the front office manages this whole situation moving forward. We’ll update you as soon as we hear more on the situation, and about who will start in Week 14 against the Saints.
Eagles HC Doug Pederson On Hot Seat
A little less than three years ago, Eagles head coach Doug Pederson was on top of the world. He and backup quarterback Nick Foles had just guided their club through a memorable playoff run that culminated in a Super Bowl victory over the Patriots, thereby bringing a Lombardi Trophy to Philadelphia for the first time and solidifying Pederson’s status in franchise lore. But things change quickly in the NFL.
According to Ian Rapoport of NFL.com, Pederson is on the hot seat. The Eagles have lost three in a row and now sit at 3-7-1, good for third place in the dismal NFC East. After the club’s loss to the Seahawks on Monday night, prominent players like Carson Wentz, Brandon Graham, and Jason Kelce held a meeting, for which Pederson was also present. Accountability and responsibility were among the items on the agenda, and it’s never a good sign when such conversations become necessary.
Team leaders also organized a players-only meeting on Wednesday, and while this past week of practice was described as lively and spirited, the Eagles are heavy underdogs in their matchup with the Packers this afternoon. If they cannot squeeze a postseason appearance out of a historically-bad division and an expanded playoff field, Pederson may very well be looking for new employment in 2021.
Indeed, Rapoport says that the 52-year-old head coach has not received any assurances about his future from owner Jeffrey Lurie, and there is speculation in the team’s facility that Pederson’s job is on the line. The tension and frustration in the building is said to be palpable.
Pederson has ceded some play-calling duties, but Wentz’s struggles and Pederson’s inability to find answers for those struggles has been a major theme of the season. In each of the past two seasons, though, Pederson’s troops have rallied in the final weeks of the campaign to secure a playoff berth, and they hope that 2020 will have a similar ending.
If Lurie does elect to part ways with Pederson, the Jets are one team that could have interest, as Rich Cimini of ESPN.com writes. New York is expected to fire Adam Gase at season’s end, if not sooner, and GM Joe Douglas worked with Pederson for three years as Philadelphia’s vice president of player personnel.
In his four-plus seasons as the Eagles’ head coach, Pederson has compiled a 41-33-1 regular season record, along with a 4-2 postseason mark. The team has won two division titles (and, of course, a Super Bowl) in that time.
NFL Reinstates Seahawks’ Josh Gordon
Josh Gordon will receive yet another chance. Three months after re-signing with the Seahawks, Gordon received notice the NFL reinstated him, Jay Glazer of Fox Sports tweets.
Another Gordon suspension ended his initial Seahawks stint in December 2019. Despite being connected to Antonio Brown throughout the offseason, Seattle ended up bringing Gordon back. He will have an opportunity to contribute this season.
The former Browns and Patriots starter will not be eligible to return until Week 16. He can begin taking COVID-19 tests with the Seahawks on Friday, rejoin the team Dec. 9 and resume practicing Dec. 21.
One of the most frequently suspended players in modern American sports history, Gordon has received bans in each of the past two Decembers for violations of the NFL’s substance-abuse policy. The league’s new CBA created a more lenient reality for non-PED drug violations, but the 29-year-old wideout’s case dragged into December nonetheless. Gordon is a unique case. The former All-Pro has been suspended nine times since his NFL career began in 2012. While not all of those bans stemmed from the substance-abuse policy, most did.
Several frequent NFL policy violators have faded off the league’s radar, but Gordon has persisted in his pursuit to continue his career. He and Roger Goodell were in communication lately, per NFL.com’s Mike Garafolo (on Twitter), preceding the embattled talent’s latest reinstatement.
Gordon has not shown his peak form in a while, but he will supply Russell Wilson with another weapon as the Seahawks attempt to secure their first NFC West title since 2016. In 11 games with the Pats and Seahawks last season, Gordon caught 27 passes for 426 yards and a touchdown. His yards-per-catch average increased significantly, bumping to 19.9, in five Seahawks games. While Gordon did not finish the 2018 season, he collected a Super Bowl ring after averaging 18 yards per catch (40 catches, 720 yards, three TDs).
This year, the former supplemental draftee will join a team that has one of the NFL’s premier wide receivers. D.K. Metcalf has taken a noticeable step forward, leading the league with 1,039 receiving yards. Metcalf, Gordon, Tyler Lockett and David Moore stand to comprise one of the league’s top receiving stables entering the playoffs. Gordon has never participated in a playoff game.
Will Fuller Suspended Six Games For PEDs
Huge news out of Houston, as star receiver Will Fuller has been suspended for six games for violating the league’s policy on PEDs, he announced on Instagram.
“Earlier this year, I sought treatment from a medical professional who prescribed medication that he believed to be permitted under the NFL’s drug policy. As it turns out, my trust in this professional was misplaced because this medication was NOT a permitted substance under the NFL Policy on Performance Enhancing Substances. As a result of this mistake, I have been suspended for six games for taking this prohibited medication. I want to sincerely apologize to the Texans organization and all of my fans for this mistake. I am looking forward to putting this all behind me and returning better than ever in 2021,” he wrote in the caption.
It’s a devastating blow for a Texans team that had started to pick up some steam recently after Bill O’Brien was fired. They’ve won three of their last four games, but it’s going to be hard to keep that momentum going without Fuller in the lineup. The speedster had been having a career year, with 53 receptions for 879 yards and eight touchdowns in 11 games after the trade of DeAndre Hopkins.
It also complicates things personally for Fuller, as he’s slated to be a free agent at the end of the year. It’s quite possible he’s played his last down in Houston. Assuming there’s not more to this story it shouldn’t effect the money he’ll get too much, as he’s expected to be one of the most sought after free agents on the market. That being said, whether it’s with the Texans or another team, he’ll have to sit out the first game of the 2021 season.
The 21st pick of the 2016 draft, Fuller struggled with injuries in his first few years in the league, tearing an ACL in 2018 among other ailments. He was finally on track to play a full 16-game season for the first time before this ban hit. This will now be the fourth straight year that he plays in 11 games or fewer.
Randall Cobb is on injured reserve and the team just cut Kenny Stills, leaving them suddenly very thin at receiver. Deshaun Watson just can’t catch a break, and Brandin Cooks should see very heavy volume moving forward. It’ll be very interesting to see what kind of contract Fuller lands come March. The Notre Dame product will turn 27 in April.
Jaguars Fire GM Dave Caldwell
After another loss dropped them to 1-10, the Jaguars are making a major shakeup. Jacksonville has fired general manager Dave Caldwell, sources told Adam Schefter of ESPN.com (Twitter link).
It looked for a while like the Jags were just going to ride out this lost season before making any big changes, but obviously owner Shad Khan felt like he couldn’t wait any longer. Just about everybody has assumed head coach Doug Marrone is a lame-duck coach waiting to get fired at the end of the season, so it’s interesting he wasn’t let go here at the same time like we saw with Matt Patricia and Bob Quinn yesterday. It’s the end of a long run for Caldwell, as he was in his eighth season with the team.
Caldwell broke into the league as a scouting assistant with the Panthers in 1996, then spent ten years as a scout with the Colts. From there he moved on to the Falcons, becoming their director of player personnel in 2012. After just one year in that role, he was poached away to lead Jacksonville’s front office. Khan released a statement politely thanking Caldwell for his time with the team but acknowledging the need for new leadership, which you can read in full via this tweet from Ian Rapoport of NFL Network. Rapsheet also notes that Trent Baalke will take over as interim GM for the rest of the season.
Baalke spent six seasons as the 49ers’ GM from 2011-16 before becoming the Jags’ personnel director back in February. Atlanta, Detroit, and Houston had already fired their GMs in-season, leaving a number of front office head openings around the league.
Caldwell certainly had an interesting tenure with the team. After his hire of Gus Bradley and drafting of Blake Bortles didn’t work out, he was essentially demoted as the team hired Tom Coughlin to run its football ops. Then after a pretty disastrous run which saw most of the star talent get traded away, like Jalen Ramsey, Coughlin himself was fired and Caldwell re-emerged with more power.
Jacksonville was never going to win anything this year with their stripped down roster, and it’s likely Khan was planning for a full-blown house cleaning for 2021 all along. Meanwhile Rapoport tweets that Khan told Marrone after the game he and the rest of his staff are safe through the rest of the season. Caldwell deserves a lot of criticism, but he’ll leave the next GM with an enviable bounty of draft picks.
The Jags had two first-rounders this past April, and they’ll have two picks in the first and second rounds in 2021. They’re entering yet another rebuild, but there could be some light at the end of the tunnel. Priority number one for the new regime will be finding a franchise quarterback, as the current trio of Gardner Minshew, Jake Luton, and Mike Glennon obviously aren’t cutting it.
All Broncos QBs Ineligible For Week 12
The Broncos and the NFL have run into a significant problem. Jeff Driskel‘s positive COVID-19 test earlier this week will lead to an unprecedented situation.
None of the Broncos’ three other QBs will be eligible to play Sunday, Adam Schefter of ESPN.com tweets. Drew Lock, Brett Rypien and Blake Bortles have been deemed high-risk close contacts of Driskel. The NFL forced the Broncos to pull the three passers out of practice earlier today, Mike Klis of 9News tweets.
With the Broncos having no available QBs, this certainly puts the viability of Sunday’s Denver-New Orleans game in doubt. However, this game is still on schedule for Sunday, NFL.com’s Ian Rapoport tweets. This seems like a tenuous proposition, but as of now, the Broncos would be forced to deploy a true emergency quarterback. They cannot sign any free agent passer to play Sunday, due to COVID-19 protocols.
Driskel’s Thursday positive test coincided with his three non-infected teammates not wearing masks, Schefter adds (on Twitter). It is not known how long the trio went without masks, but it was evidently long enough for the NFL to sideline an entire team’s QB room. The Patriots saw Cam Newton sidelined because of the virus earlier this season, and COVID-positive Lamar Jackson will miss Tuesday’s Ravens-Steelers game — should it stay on as scheduled. But the Broncos’ predicament drags the NFL into new territory regarding the virus.
The Broncos have a wide receiver on their practice squad, Kendall Hinton, who played quarterback at Wake Forest for three seasons, Klis adds (on Twitter). Quality control coach Rob Calabrese worked in that role at practice Saturday, Klis tweets. Hinton attempted 251 career passes with the Demon Deacons, though most of them came in 2015. He ran for 390 yards and seven TDs that season.
Broncos, Garett Bolles Agree On Extension
Garett Bolles‘ contract-year emergence will transform him from a scrutinized player to the Broncos’ long-term left tackle. The Broncos announced Saturday they agreed to terms on a new deal for their breakout blocker.
It’s a four-year, $68MM deal for Bolles, Ian Rapoport of NFL.com tweets. This news comes days after Bolles indicated he wanted to stay in Denver beyond his rookie contract, though no known negotiations had transpired.
Bolles is not the NFL’s highest-paid tackle, at $17MM per year, but he now becomes its sixth-best-compensated tackle. This represents one of the most stunning contract-year developments in recent NFL history.
The 2017 first-round pick led the NFL in holding penalties by a wide margin from 2017-19 and entered this year’s training camp in a battle to keep his job. The Broncos did not pick up Bolles’ fifth-year option in May, but after 10 strong games as one of the best left tackles in the game this season, the franchise has changed its line of thinking.
Going into Week 12, Bolles grades as Pro Football Focus’ No. 1 overall tackle. He has not allowed a sack this season, despite the Broncos having used three starting quarterbacks. The 28-year-old blocker has become Denver’s first long-term tackle starter since Ryan Clady and followed the former All-Pro in signing a Broncos extension. Denver has used a different right tackle starter in Week 1 of every season since 2013, but Bolles — his struggles from 2017-19 notwithstanding — has started every game since he arrived out of Utah three years ago. The Broncos already have right tackle Ja’Wuan James — a 2020 opt-out after missing most of last season — signed to a big-ticket deal.
This deal doubles as the Broncos’ first major extension for a draftee selected since Super Bowl 50. Denver kept 2016 third-rounder Justin Simmons around via franchise tag but had not previously come to a notable extension agreement with a player chosen since its February 2016 victory parade.
Lions Fire Bob Quinn, Matt Patricia
Two days after the Lions endured a Thanksgiving blowout loss, they are making major changes. The organization announced the firings of Matt Patricia and GM Bob Quinn on Saturday. Offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell will take over as interim head coach, Ian Rapoport of NFL.com tweets. This will be Bevell’s first HC opportunity.
This move is certainly not unexpected, with the Lions on track to miss the playoffs for a fourth straight season. Ownership gave Quinn and Patricia a playoffs-or-bust-themed directive for 2020. After being routed by the Panthers and Texans over the past two weeks, the Lions are well off course.
Patricia’s ouster marks a second former Bill Belichick assistant to be fired in-season. Patricia coached against interim Texans HC Romeo Crennel on Thursday, doing so weeks after Houston canned Bill O’Brien. Patricia did not come especially close to achieving the kind of success O’Brien did and will not finish his third season. The former Patriots DC’s Lions tenure will wrap with a 13-29-1 record.
Quinn determined Jim Caldwell‘s back-to-back 9-7 seasons were not worthy of a fifth year, leading to the former Pats executive bringing in his former coworker. Although the Lions’ swoon last season could be attributed to Matthew Stafford‘s midseason injury, they have no such excuse this year. Stafford has started throughout, and the Lions will enter Week 13 at 4-7. Since Patricia’s hire, the Lions have blown an NFL-most 18 fourth-quarter leads, as Ed Werder of ESPN.com notes (via Twitter).
While Caldwell’s Lions could not build on their 11-5 2014 season, Patricia’s teams did not come close to a worthwhile follow-up effort. The longtime NFL defensive coach has seen his third Detroit defense drop to 30th in points allowed. The regression was not especially steep, with the Lions ranking 28th in defensive DVOA in 2018 and ’19.
Quinn’s firing makes for an interesting NFL GM landscape. Three jobs — in Atlanta, Detroit and Houston — are available before December. Quinn took over for Martin Mayhew in 2016; the Lions did not win 10 games in a season during his tenure.
NFL Moves Ravens-Steelers To Tuesday Night
2:28pm: This game is now slated for 7pm CT Tuesday. The Ravens’ Week 13 game against the Cowboys has been moved to 4pm CT on Monday, Dec. 7. The league has not announced a change for Pittsburgh’s Week 13 game against Washington, which remains on for Sunday, Dec. 6.
1:46pm: The Ravens-Steelers rematch will be rescheduled for a second time. The NFL is moving the AFC North rivalry from Sunday afternoon to Tuesday night, Adam Schefter and Dianna Russini of ESPN report (via Twitter).
Having already postponed the game originally scheduled for Thanksgiving night, the league has now pushed it back to what appears to be a fail-safe point. A Ravens coronavirus outbreak, one that has produced positive tests throughout the week, caused the postponements.
Double-digit Ravens players and staffers — a list that now includes Lamar Jackson — have tested positive for COVID-19. More test results are expected to arrive Friday. This will mark the first Tuesday game since Bills-Titans in October. However, the league is limited with options if more Ravens positives prompt another delay.
Another move would prompt the NFL to exercise its Week 18 emergency option or trigger the 16-team playoff format — if it simply calls off the Baltimore-Pittsburgh rematch. The NFL has not seen its teams play an uneven number of games since 1935.
The Ravens disciplined a strength and conditioning staffer earlier this week for failure to comply with the NFL’s evolving COVID-19 protocol. They will now be down the reigning MVP. Jackson and third-string quarterback Trace McSorley reside on Baltimore’s reserve/COVID list. Robert Griffin III will start against the Steelers, with undrafted rookie Tyler Huntley in line to be his backup. RG3 faced the Steelers last season, but that came in Week 17 last season after the Ravens had clinched home-field advantage.
This outbreak has led to a Steelers game being postponed for the second time this season. A Titans outbreak began an NFL rescheduling wave, moving the Steelers’ bye to Week 4. Pittsburgh is now on track for a Tuesday-Sunday double next week, with a game against Washington looming Dec. 6. The NFL, however, moved the Bills-Chiefs matchup back a day to accommodate the Bills. It may do the same for the Steelers. The Ravens’ Week 13 game against the Cowboys — originally slated for Thursday, Dec. 3 — will be moved.